The Man in the Mirror
by StanaTorv
Summary: Where is Peter Bishop? And how can they find him if they don't know who he is? Spoilers for season 4 and the end of season 3. One shot.


**I was watching season one and this kind of popped into my head and I couldn't stop it pretty much taking over. Spoilers for the beginning of season four and what I kind of want to see happen. Just a one shot; basically it was going to be the first 500 words that you see, but it kind of had a mind of its own and wouldn't let me stop writing. **

**This is my first Fringe fic, so I hope you all like it. All mistakes are my own. **

**Disclaimer: Not mine. FOX owns the rights and JJ Abrams came up with the original idea. I'm just borrowing them for a few minutes.**

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><p><strong>The Man in the Mirror <strong>

There's a hole inside of her that she couldn't quite explain. The hole had been there for as long as she could remember; the feeling that it gave her was stronger these last three years. It was as if something, someone, was missing from her life. It was a crazy notion, she kept telling herself; the last person she had lost was John, but not even he had left a hole this size.

Olivia Dunham went through the motions, day in and day out, case after case. She knew she had a connection to Walter Bishop stemming from her time in Jacksonville and at times it was if he kept that hole in her life from getting bigger and overwhelming her. It was if they needed each other to tether themselves to the world.

Olivia wondered if her alternate felt the same as she did. She knew that they weren't subject to the same experiments as children and she didn't have the same, deep emotional connection to Walternate. Olivia needed to know if counterpart too had a hole missing in her life.

Walter kept talking about a man, a man in the mirror, a man in the television, a man who appeared and disappeared from thin air. Could this be the someone that is missing? Could he be the cause of the hole? But who was he? Why did he only appear to Walter? Walter did only start to see him after they started working with the other side; what did they have to do with it all? Was the machine involved in it all? What was the meaning of it all? So many unanswered questions ran though Olivia's head.

She sat languidly on her couch, a glass of Johnny Walker Black swirling around in her hand, Bach playing in the background. For some reason, Bach helped in her unwinding after a long week working at the bureau. Olivia couldn't pinpoint the moment when she decided that this is what she needed, but she knew deep down, that is was apart of this hole in her life.

"Olivia." The voice whispered around her. She whipped her head to find the owner of the voice. There was no one there.

"Olivia." There it was again, this time louder. She stood up from the couch and placed her glass on the coffee table in front of her. She walked into her bedroom and grabbed her gun from her drawer.

"Olivia." She spun around towards the door and that is when she saw him. Olivia raised her gun towards him.

"Who are you?" she asked, staring intently at man, his own blue eyes piercing into her green ones.

"You know who I am, Olivia. I'm inside of you."

"I've never seen you before. How can I know?"

The man flickered, "Search for me, Olivia." Then he disappeared.

Olivia dropped her gun on the bed and picked up her phone. She dialed a number and put it to her ear.

"Hello," the voice on the other end answered.

"Walter, it's Olivia. I saw him. I saw the man in the mirror," she breathed.

"What did he want?"

"He needs me to find him Walter. He needs me to search for him."

"W-well, did he say where?" Walter stuttered.

"He said that I knew who he was and that he was inside of me. What does that mean, Walter? How do I know someone that I've never met?"

"I do not know, but perhaps we should do as he asks."

Olivia let out a long breath, "I'll be there in fifteen minutes." She hung up the phone and she the pyjamas she was wearing and slipped into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. She didn't know how long this was going to take and she wanted to be comfortable. Running her fingers though her hair and throwing a jacket over her bare arms, she collected her gun, badge and keys; she walked out of her apartment and into the cool fall Boston night.

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><p><em>Harvard University<em>

"Do you have any idea who this man is, Walter?" Olivia asked as she paced around his lab benches as he sat on one of the stools, concentrating intently – as intently as Walter could.

He shook his head, "No. No idea. I-I have a feeling that I should." He paused. "There is something about him that is familiar…I just can't seem to put my finger on it."

Putting her hand on her hips, Olivia questioned him further, "But, why me, Walter? Why would he appear to me, talk to me, when you're the only one that has been able to see him previously? It makes no sense."

"There are times, Olivia, when the universe doesn't make sense on its own, but it is up to us to keep on questioning it." He put a hand on her arm softly. "Perhaps next time he visits you, you should ask him what you asked me. Maybe then you will find the answers that we all seek."

Olivia sighed and dropped onto a stool opposite Walter, "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea." She smiled at him, "Seeing as we can't do much, how about you make me one of your famous strawberry milkshakes and we can hang out for a little while?"

Walter's eyes lit up and he grinned, "We haven't done that in a long time."

"I know."

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><p>It was another three days before the man showed up again. Olivia was in her kitchen making dinner, a glass of red wine on the counter next to her.<p>

"Olivia." She spun around, the knife in her hand knocking the glass off the counter and sending it down to the ground, shattering into pieces. She swore to herself before looking straight at the man. He was wearing jeans and a dark blue sweater, his three-day growth adding to his attractiveness.

"What do you want from me?"

"You need to bring me back, Olivia."

She looked at him in confusion, "Back from where? Where are you exactly?"

"The fabric of time," he replied before flickering and then disappearing.

Olivia slumped back against the counter, "The fabric of time. What kind of answer was that?" she asked herself in frustration. Looking down at the ground, she saw the shards of glass that were littered at her feet. "Damn." Tiptoeing slowly, she set about cleaning up the mess.

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><p><em>Harvard University<em>

Walter stood at one of his many whiteboards, "Fabric of time. Fabric of time. Fabric of time." He kept repeating it over and over again, whilst staring intently at a series of calculations.

It was about twelve o'clock when Olivia walked into the lab, standing next to Astrid and watched Walter do his thing. "How long has he been like that?"

"From what I can tell, all night. Tim said that he saw Walter come in here after he received a phone call last night."

"Damn. That was my fault. I called him and told him what the man told me and it must have sparked something in him."

"The man?" Astrid asked.

Olivia nodded, "Yeah, the man in the mirror that Walter started seeing a few weeks ago; he's started appearing to me, but he actually talks to me."

"Why does he talk to you and not Walter?"

She shook her head, "I don't know. Maybe he knows that I can get Walter to help without freaking him out so often."

"Good point."

The two women stood and watched Walter work for another five minutes before Olivia moved towards the scientist. She placed a hand on his arm and spoke softly, "Walter, do you want something to eat?"

Walter spun around and faced her, "Olivia!" he exclaimed, "I think I found it. I think I know how to bring him back."

She smiled at him, "That's great, Walter. What do we do?"

"Astro, I need the specifications and diagnostics of the machine," he pointed to the large pile of folders and papers on one of the desks. "Olivia, you need to get the other us to meet us at the machine. It's very important that both sides are there, when this happens." Walter ran up the stairs and headed into the hallway.

"When what happens, Walter?" Olivia called out as she chased after him.

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><p>At the secure warehouse where the machine was kept, Olivia and Walter proceeded through the tight security and headed to what they called the Bridging Universe. It was the place where the two sides could meet and work without causing any more damage to each of their respective universes.<p>

They stood at the base of the machine looking towards the other side's elevator. It wasn't long before the clear glass door slid open and Walternate and the red-haired Olivia stepped out and moved towards their counterparts.

"You said that you had something important to discuss with us." Walternate directed his statement at Olivia.

"You'll have to ask Walter, I'm just here for the ride," she told him pointedly.

Walternate turned his attention to his counterpart and narrowed his eyes. "Well? We haven't got all day."

Walter nodded, "Right, right." He paused momentarily. "There is a man, stuck in the fabric of time. He is important to us all and we need to bring him back to us."

Alt-Olivia spoke up, "What man? And how is he important?"

"I-I do not know. But, I do know that in order to bring him home safely, we need to do it here. I have hypothesized that because he cannot reconstitute himself in our world properly, he cannot in yours either. Therefore, this is the only place where we can do it."

"And how do you suggest we do that?" Walternate asked.

Walter turned and pointed, "The machine. I have calculated that it is possible for it to cross space and time and we just need to calibrate it so that we can find this man who is stuck between time and space."

"So why do you need me?" Alt-Olivia asked.

"Because somehow he's important to me and therefore, quite possibly you," Olivia replied.

Alt-Olivia nodded, "Fair enough; so lets get to work."

Two days later, simulations had been run and calculations were worked and re-worked multiple times, and finally everything was ready. The other side had artificially produced the DNA needed to run the machine, so that is what they used again to get it started. The machine whirred to life and electricity bounced from side to side.

"It is almost to full power. When it gets there we must be quick. We need to isolate all the fluctuations in the time space ribbon," Walter stated. "Once we have found them, we must direct the machine to draw them out; it may be the man we are looking for."

The two sets of Walter and Olivia went to work, side-by-side, monitoring systems and punching in commands to the computers. The system spiked, indicating a flux. "There." Walternate pointed at his screen.

"Isolate and draw it out; let the machine sort it where it is meant to be," Walter directed.

Over the next five minutes, the fluctuations occurred more rapidly and the two scientists worked furiously together. In front of the machine, light started flashing and the two Olivias made their way over to the base. The flashes then became more recognizable as a person, a man. He and the whole room flashed and Peter flickered into existence inside the machine before it let him go and he collapsed onto the stairs.

The machine died down and Olivia climbed up to him and kneeling beside his head, she cupped his face in her hands, "Peter, open your eyes. Look at me, Peter."

Slowly, Peter cracked open his eyes and looked up at Olivia and smiled his trademark grin, "Hi."

"Hi. How're you feeling?"

"Like I've been run over by the Delorian a few hundred times. Other than that, never been better."

Olivia smiled and helped him get up so that they could move to where the rest of the group was congregated. Peter walked between the two Walters. "This is a bridging universe that I was able to create so that our two worlds can start to work together to fix what we have broken."

"That was a very ingenious idea, son," Walter praised him, "How did you know the machine could do that?"

"It's a long story, Walter. How about we save that one for later, okay?"

Walter nodded and went back to working on whatever it was that he was doing.

Peter looked at Walternate, "You both have a lot to atone for, so I suggest you start here." He then turned to Alt-Olivia, "And you, you manipulated me and I was a sucker. I should have seen the differences, but you made me blind. Never again. I don't want you coming anywhere near me."

She gave a half smile and pulled out her fancy PDA, "Before I leave you two alone, I want to show you this." She handed him the piece of technology and he looked at the image on it. "Before you ask, he is yours, but you have no claim to him. Henry is my son."

Peter touched the tiny face of his son's picture before handing it back to her, "Congratulations," he told her softly, "I know you'll do a great job in raising him." He wrapped his arm around his Olivia's waist and squeezed tightly. "Come on, I need a drink."

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><p>The hole in Olivia's life was gone. Peter filled it with the way he looked at her, the way he smiled at her, the way he touched her, the way he loved her and the way he occupied her entire being. The part that was missing was now found and she wasn't going to let it get lost again.<p>

They sat entwined together on her couch in her dimly lit living room, listening to Bach play softly in the background. She looked up at him and smiled. "I'm so glad you came back to me. You belong with me Peter."

He brought her face towards his own and kissed her softly. "You'll have me forever, Olivia. I love you."

She kissed him, "I love you, too."

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><p><strong>So the reason why Olivia knew who Peter was when he got out of the machine was because, in my reality, time had reset itself and we are back to where season three ended and Peter still exists. I hope that you all understood that. I'm also no scientist so I hope it was sort of believable.<strong>

**Please leave a review; I would love to know what you all thought.**

**Sam**


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